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Trying to save files directly on Dropbox (not on hard drive), but they still save on Hard-Disk Drive
Hi All,
Let me start by saying I'm brand new to dropbox, so I apologize if my concerns are low-level and I thank you for your patience in advanced.
Here are my details:
I'm a Bioinformatics student, and I've created a BASH script that:
- unzips 22 large files (*.vcf.gz to *.vcf)
- assigns these unzipped files to a new subfolder within the original directory
- concatenates these 22 files into a single, large file
Each unzipped file (*.vcf) is ~ 22 GBs large, so they eat up the space on my hard-disk drive (HDD).
Accordingly, I've downloaded the dropbox application on my laptop and moved the project directory within the dropbox application
(ex. '/Users/myprofile/"Dropbox (Personal)"/project_directory').
When I run the BASH script that performs the above 3 steps, it doesn't run to completion because the unzipped files are saved to my HDD and it can't store 484+ GB of data.
I'm wondering how I can make it such that when I run the BASH script, the 22 unzipped files and the large, concatenated file are automatically saved onto the dropbox application and NOT my HDD.
I have 2 TB of dropbox space and I'm working on a MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) running Big Sur v11.4
desmond_singh wrote:
I'm wondering how I can make it such that when I run the BASH script, the 22 unzipped files and the large, concatenated file are automatically saved onto the dropbox application and NOT my HDD.
You can't. That's not how Dropbox works. It's not a cloud-based folder. It's a regular folder on your local hard drive like any other, and anything stored in the folder takes up space on the drive. Files saved in the folders are synced to your account online. It's not possible to save directly to the cloud, bypassing your local drive.
16 Replies
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Exactly! I have the same problem. I'm extremely frustrated as I need it to do work. What did you ever find out? Thanks.
- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey klegreid1, let's jump right into this!
First of all, let me say that since you're using a paid plan, you should have access to our live support. You can find more about it right here.
Now, as for your Dropbox files taking up hard drive space, could you clarify if you've enabled Computer backup, by any chance?
Also, do you have your Dropbox files synced locally to your device, or are they in an online-only state?
Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!
Thank you Megan. Yes, it seems that the Backup options were checked as active. Do I turn those off? I primarily just want to work online not offline.
- Jay
Hi klegreid1, you can disable the computer backup which would give you the option to move the files back to their default locations, so they no longer take up quota on your account.
However, this wouldn't affect the amount of space it takes up on your machine, since those files are already located there. Have you tried marking files as online-only as my colleague Megan suggested?
Hi Jay,
I believe Dropbox support did help me disable that. In terms of marking online, etc. I've tried that as well. Honestly, I don't know what to do.
Can I ask, is the Dropbox app different from the Dropbox I loaded on my Mac laptop/computer/desktop? Do you think that will help with the functionality of copying and pasting from one doc to another? That is a secondary problem I am experiencing. I read previous threads on this but am not really seeing the solution. There simply isn't the same functionality with copying and pasting from Word on the Web to Excel on the Web. I try to copy and paste a bulleted list from a Word doc into a single Excel cell and it instead pastes it across several cells w/each showing a single, new bullet. It's so strange and frustrating. Thank you, in advance.
- Hannah
Hey klegreid1, there's only one Dropbox application that you can install on your Mac computers, which you can download here.
As for your question about Word and Excel for the web, are you seeing a different behavior when performing the same steps with the local Word and Excel apps?
If so, can you send us a couple of screenshots of what you see, when you do this locally, versus online?
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